MARBURY, Md. (Sept. 16, 2024) – Boater Todd Langford of Great Falls, Virginia, caught a five-bass limit weighing 18 pounds, 15 ounces, Sunday to win the MLF Bass Fishing League (BFL) Super Tournament on the Potomac River. The tournament was the fifth and final event of the season for the BFL Northeast Division. Langford earned $7,232, including the lucrative $2,500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus, for his victory.
BFL Super Tournaments are typically two-day events, scheduled in early fall to conclude each BFL division season. In order to make up a previous tournament that was postponed due to unsafe boating divisions, the Northeast Division anglers squared off twice over the weekend at the Potomac River. First, they fished their fourth qualifying event on Saturday – a normal one-day tournament. They then squared off again on Sunday to conclude their season in a shortened one-day Super Tournament.
Langford finished second in Saturday’s Potomac River event with 16 pounds, 4 ounces. He fished more or less the same area and pattern in Sunday’s event. And even though he said the fishing was a little tougher (he caught about half as many fish on Sunday), he managed to get bigger bites, improving his weight and locking down the win.
“I was just fishing heavy matted grass,” he said. “You’ve really got to kind of pinpoint the best areas, and I just got fortunate. I found a couple little hundred-yard stretches that they were on.”
One of the keys, said Langford, was “waiting them out.” In other words: being patient. The fish repositioned within the mats based on the tides and were on the move throughout the tournament. To try to stay on them, Langford worked the mats thoroughly, fishing in the middle and the edges with a punch rig and a frog.
“You had to make them react,” he added. “You could get some bites on a frog, but you had to kind of call them up a little bit.”
The top 10 boaters finished the tournament:
1st: Todd Langford, Great Falls, Va., five bass, 18-15, $7,232 (includes $2,500 Phoenix MLF Contingency Bonus)
2nd: Aaron Dixon, Bel Alton, Md., five bass, 18-9, $2,366
3rd: Tom Bateman, Welcome, Md., five bass, 16-14, $1,577
4th: Michael Ortel, Stewartstown, Pa., five bass, 15-11, $1,229
5th: Joseph Thompson, Coatesville, Pa., five bass, 15-4, $946
6th: Fred Aldridge, Brandy Station, Va., five bass, 13-14, $868
7th: John Duarte, Middle River, Md., five bass, 13-14, $1,089
8th: Jarrett Kuipers, Oakland, N.H., five bass, 13-14 , $710
9th: Spencer Cookson, Sheffield, Mass., five bass, 13-7, $631
10th: Robert Grike, Dumfries, Va., five bass, 12-15, $552
Complete results can be found at MajorLeagueFishing.com.
Jason Orecchio of Andover, New Jersey, caught a bass that weighed 5 pounds, 8 ounces, and earned the Big Bass Boater award of $555. Hampton Robinson of Bealeton, Virginia, won the co-angler division and $2,366 Sunday, after bringing five bass to the scale that totaled 11 pounds, 9 ounces.
The top 10 co-anglers finished:
1st: Hampton Robinson, Bealeton, Va., five bass, 11-9, $2,366
2nd: Ryan Spivey, Fairfax, Va., five bass, 11-2, $1,183
3rd: Ricky Windsor III, Huntingtown, Md., five bass, 10-3, $790
4th: Brent Kauffman, Marysville, Pa., five bass, 10-1, $552
5th: Bonnie Lucas, Largo, Md., five bass, 9-14, $473
6th: Logan Bloomfield, East Berlin, Pa., five bass, 9-12, $434
7th: Lenny Baird, Stafford, Va., five bass, 9-9, $394
8th: Nathan Routzahn, Myersville, Md., five bass, 9-9, $355
9th: Troy Mills, Lewistown, Pa., five bass, 9-8, $315
10th: Robert Wedding, Welcome, Md., five bass, 9-3, $276
Jeff Turner of Morris, Illinois, earned the Berkley Big Bass co-angler award of $277, catching a bass that weighed in at 4 pounds, 12 ounces – the largest co-angler catch of the day.
At the conclusion of the tournament, Joseph Thompson of Coatesville, Pennsylvania, was crowned the Fishing Clash Northeast Division Angler of the Year (AOY) with 1,298 points to bring home the $1,000 award, while Lenny Baird of Stafford, Virginia, won the Fishing Clash Northeast Division Co-angler of the Year race with 1,341 points to earn $500
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